


Reunion

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [569]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-30 18:06:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15102131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: scribeofred asked*slides into your askbox to mention that rarepair Virgil/Penny could use more attention*





	Reunion

It starts when Penny receives a cellophane-wrapped parcel, tied with a bow and with a hand-written card.  “I think you’ll find they’re cookies”

They’re soft in the middle, chewy and sweet and rich with chocolate chips.  Penny eats them all in one sitting, crumbs on her chin, as she considers the hand-doodled little heart on the bottom corner of the card.

 * * *

Black-tie isn’t Virgil’s thing, but he promised despite the wide-eyes of his brothers at the way Penny had weaved past them to stop in from of Virgil with her request.

He tugs awkwardly at his cuffs, feeling the suit across the back of his shoulders – it had been so long between events, and Penny hadn’t left him much more time than to grab his suit back out of the back of the closet before following her into the back of Fab One.

Next to him, Penny sighs and puts her empty champagne flute down expertly on the tray of a passing waiter.  “Darling, you’re fine.”  Her hands rest on his lapels, lingering for a moment before pressing down to the single button.  “Perfect, even.”

Virgil drowns in her smile and offers her his arm.  She leans against him like a hummingbird resting on a favourite tree, and Virgil feels his shoulders relax.

 * * * 

They’re both busy people, but it’s not hard to send little notes, photographs taken in passing, quick questions and replies back and forth, back and forth on their private channel.

“I’m not bothering you, am I?” Virgil asks her out of the blue.  She can just imagine, far way on the island, his brothers making one too many comments about how he’s always texting now.

“Darling,” she flashes back immediately.  “You’re the highlight of my day.”

 * * *

They’re in Cologne or Bologna or someplace that sounds like that.  Virgil is edging onto twenty-four hours awake, and the vague syllabury is the best he can come to naming the place.  Wherever it is has pretty old stone buildings and an arching bridge over a slow moving tributary inching its way to sea.

He should be in bed, trying to sleep despite the adrenaline of the rescue and wired-tiredness that comes from too long awake.  But he’s here because when Penny asked, her smile was tight and her eyes weren’t sparkling, and everything about it seemed off.

She’s clutching his arm now, tight enough to bruise, though her smile doesn’t shift from where she’s cemented her cheeks.  A casual observer wouldn’t know the difference.

Virgil’s made a study of her smiles.  “Truth or dare?” he asks mildly in the gap between knots of people, turning them to step onto the narrow bridge.  The bubbling of the brook softens the sounds of the too-large crowd.  “Come on, Pen.  Spill.”

“Lady Catherine is a very dear old school friend,” Penny sighs, her death grip on his arm loosening as she rests her head against his shoulder.  “Who, despite her many virtues, does have the tiniest tendency to, uh…”

“Gloat?” Virgil asks mildly.  He’s spent the last hour watching their hostess shove her ring and her fiancee’s wealth and her fiancee, in that order, under the nose of every last one of her visitors.  Virgil doesn’t know her, has no skin in this game, and even he’s finding it tiresome.

Penny chuckles, even as she lightly pinches his wrist.  “I wasn’t going to put it like that.”

“Isn’t that why you bring the crass American? To say things bluntly?” He loves the way they can banter back and forth, and her laugh lifts some of the tiredness off his back.  “But seriously, Penny, why do you care?” He leans in, close enough that the breath of his voice gently ruffles her hair.  “You’re on the arm of the prettiest boy here.”

This time her laugh turns heads.  “I kind of am, aren’t I?”  she smiles up at him, and Virgil feels the moment freeze, all sound falling away as he looks down and she looks up.

He’s already bending over as she rises onto her toes, and they meet in the middle in the gentlest press of lips.  It’s enough to make him feel like he’s touched a live wire, but even that pales to the way Penny  _glows_  as she drops back slowly onto her heels.  “Yes?” she asks as if testing for weakness, giving him a way out.

“Yes,” he says firmly, never so sure of anything in his life.

Penny lifts the arm she’s been leaning on and ducks in against his side, snuggling in and making herself at home. Virgil holds her close as she rests a hand on his chest, her fingers seeking out the triple-beat of his heart.  She softens against him, and they breathe out as one as the sound of the world around them flows back in again.


End file.
